


Shadows

by MusicalMoritz



Category: Batfamily - Fandom, DC Comics
Genre: Angst, Anti-Batcest, Anti-BruDick, BruDick bashing, Bruce bashing, Character Study, Child abuse/neglect, Childhood Trauma, Coping Mechanisms, Dick Grayson needs therapy, Drabble, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I decided to stop bashing JayTim and go after the real evil of this fandom, Light D/s undertones, M/M, Married Life, Self-Indulgent, Stalking, Strict Parents, Wally West is a good husband, minor smut, minor victim blaming, referenced pedophilia, semi-uplifting ending, sexualization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:13:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27774337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalMoritz/pseuds/MusicalMoritz
Summary: Dick was the Golden Boy, the eldest child that everyone adored. Or, at least that’s what everyone thought.This is basically just Dick reflecting on his childhood trauma. Hope ya like angst
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Wally West
Comments: 4
Kudos: 87





	Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Hello loves💕 Please take the tags seriously with this one. Most of the stuff is only mentioned but it could still be triggering.  
> I feel like this fic is gonna be controversial since we all love BatDad and, like, I do too; but lbr, these kids are gonna need therapy even in the universes where Bruce is portrayed as a “good” father  
> Anyways, enjoy!

No matter where Dick went, he always felt like someone was following him. Driving to work, patrolling, walking home late at night, going to parties, hanging out with friends…whatever he was doing, he usually felt the need to look over his shoulder. 

When he was young, the things that bothered him had almost seemed normal at the time. Every kid had to deal with strict parents, right? Especially hero kids. The lifestyle just required a little extra precaution. 

The difference, he would later come to realize, was that not every kid had been fighting crime since they were nine. Not every kid was taught to channel their trauma and grief into justice and vengeance. Not every kid had to distance themselves from their closest friends in order to remain a mystery. 

It was something that every bat kid realized at some point; that their upbringing was in no way “normal” or “healthy.” In a way, it was something they had always known. 

Tim had accepted it to the point where it still hadn’t registered with him to be bothered by the bizarreness of it all. Damian and Cass had grown up in much worse situations, and therefore couldn’t really complain. Duke was still new to it all, and had started off at an older age. Jason was angry with it, and did everything in his power to make that known. But Dick? Dick hid from it. 

It would be selfish of him to say he had the worst upbringing of the Robins/Batgirls, considering what happened with Jason. Not to mention, Damian and Cass were traumatized long before they met Bruce. Anytime he does try to bring it up, Jason finds it infuriating. After all, what does Boy Wonder have to be angry about? 

Was it the fact that Bruce had locked him in the Bat Cave for a week to teach him survival skills? Or the time he snapped and hit him, which he had felt awful about but ever apologized for? Was it that Bruce discouraged any friendships aside from those who knew his identity(aka, him, Barbara and Alfred)? The fact that he’s never even heard his own father tell him that he’s proud of him? 

No, he doesn’t have anything to feel hurt or confused about. 

Some days, Dick thinks he might have gone insane without Wally. The speedster isn’t capable of solving any of his problems, especially considering that there’s a lot he’s not ready to talk about, but he’s been the only real sense of freedom he’s had in his life. 

Everything about him seems to tie back to Batman-hell, even his name can’t be spoken without receiving an immediate “You’re Bruce Wayne’s ward, aren’t you?”. Even Nightwing was still closely associated with Gotham. 

But things were different with Wally. His first and greatest act of rebellion has been letting Wally know everything about him. It hurts him to know that Bruce may still know him better-but, then again, not really. 

Because Wally knows him better than he knows himself. Wally’s the only person Dick’s ever really been able to let in. If Dick is Wally’s lightening rod, then Wally is Dick’s as well. 

He still remembers one of the first times he opened up to Wally about how tense things were at home, back on Young Justice. Bruce had shown up to chew Dick out about his performance during training and Dick almost hid in his room for the rest of the day, until Wally knocked on his door. 

He told the redhead that it seemed everything Bruce had to say about him was negative, that he often refused to let him call him “dad” or at least “father.” He confessed that he was starting to believe there was nothing good about him, and Wally responded by typing him an alphabetized list of everything amazing about him. 

Dick still kept it after all these years to look at occasionally when he was feeling down. 

Wally wasn’t someone Bruce particularly liked, or wanted his son to end up with. But he was someone Dick felt safe around, someone that didn’t make him feel like he needed to sleep with one eye open. 

One of the most challenging parts that comes with taking up the Robin mantle is dealing with the media. It’s having to sit in class listening to the kids beside you joke about how Batman is totally screwing his side kick. It’s listening to teens, adults, and even some of your best friends make jokes about the classic green shorts. 

This is something most former Robins outgrow, but apparently not Dick. For him, growing up only made the sexualization worse. After all, Nightwing was considered quite a hot commodity in the hero community. 

Sometimes he wonders if it’s something he did wrong. When he asks the other bat boys, they say the shipping jokes and gross pedo comments were rare occurrences, and that they didn’t have to deal with as many creeps once they ditched the mantle. 

So what made him any different? Would Jason and Tim have had to deal with people fetishizing the whole Robin gig if Dick hadn’t set some sort of precedent for it? And why didn’t it stop once he became Nightwing? 

Maybe it wasn’t a Robin thing, maybe it was just him. 

Part of the reason he thinks he fell for Wally so hard is that he was never just something to stare at or lust after for him-he was his best friend. In fact, Wally didn’t actually start to look at him like that until they got older, and had no problem telling off pervs who did so before that. Wally never made comments about his shorts, or joked about the whole Batman/Robin ship. He never even brought that stuff up unless Dick wanted to talk about it. 

Dick doesn’t think he uses sex to cope with trauma, but it definitely makes him feel liberated in some ways. Because sleeping with Wally isn’t anything anyone’s forcing upon him, or that made him feel objectified or taken advantage of. 

He feels safe being vulnerable around Wally, enjoys being able to let go-to have a part of his life controlled by someone else. While neither of them are really interested in a dom/sub lifestyle, Dick can’t say he doesn’t enjoy the thought. 

To have someone that’s not Bruce completely control his life. To be able to put someone-his husband, the love of his life-before anything that ties him back to Gotham. 

It’s something he would only ever consider doing with Wally, but it’s not really their thing. Besides, he enjoys occasionally topping Wally way too much to ever give that up. And their life is so much more than that. 

He loves the sex, but it’s far from the best part of their relationship. They both simply adore the normality they’re allowed to have in their day to day lives when they’re not doing hero work. Going to work together, binging trashy reality TV shows together, eating dinner together, having date nights…it’s all so simple, yet it feels too good to be true. 

But even that isn’t theirs, not completely. Because, wherever he goes, Bruce somehow knows where he is and what he’s doing. He’s pretty sure there are cameras hidden in their apartment somewhere, although Wally’s checked about a million times. 

That’s another thing you have to get used to as Robin-Batman is always watching. Even when you think you’ve hidden something from him, he somehow knows about it. 

One of Wally’s favorite teasing lines to use(especially in their more intimate activities) is “If only Batman could see you now.” Sometimes it’s spoken when Dick’s blind folded and handcuffed to the bed, sometimes when they’re having contests to see who can eat the most pizza the fastest. Either way, Dick loves it. Just the notion that the only person who can see him in that moment is Wally, that whatever’s happening is something Bruce either has no idea about or can’t stop, is enough to drive him crazy. 

But he knows it’s too good to be true. With his life, it’d be stupid to think him and Wally will ever have a moment that’s just between them. 

Wally tells him he’s being paranoid, and maybe he is-he hardly knows what’s real anymore. But, still, he can’t help but look over his shoulder everywhere he goes. Because there’s always a shadow following him, waiting for him to slip up so that it can drag him back to Gotham and remind him that there’s no escaping the life he’s chosen. 

Maybe things will be different once him and Wally retire. Maybe it’ll really be just them for once. 

He knows Bruce has learned from the mistakes he made raising him. He’s genuinely trying to be a better father, even if he’s still not the most emotionally available person. And he did try his best with Dick. At the end of the day, he did more good than he did bad. 

But that doesn’t make the shadows go away, doesn’t help him sleep at night. It doesn’t make home feel any less inescapable. 

So he hides. He does his whole Nightwing thing, runs the Teen Titans, works at the BCPD, and enjoys his domestic life with the only person he’s ever felt safe around; all while hiding from the shadows that lurk behind him. It may not mean as much as whatever he’s contributed to the bat family, but it means the world to him. 

And he’s slowly allowing himself to open up more to Wally about it all. It may not make the problems go away, but it feels nice to finally talk about them. And he knows Wally will be there to help him cope with it all, just like he’s helped Wally sort through everything with his dad. Wally did always joke that their crappy upbringings made them soulmates. 

Dick wants to get away from it all, he really does. He wants to wake up one day without any Batman to worry about, wants to finally be able to breathe. 

While that day may never come, and he knows he’ll always have demons, he also knows that he doesn’t have to let it all overcome him. He can still smile, still laugh, even after all he’s been through. It may not be much, but it sure is something. 

He can’t help that his life has put him on a ledge, but he has the choice of rather to jump or not. And the view he has right now is too pretty to miss.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed!!! Don’t forget to stay hydrated, take your meds if you have any, get plenty of rest and do your homework


End file.
